DISCUSSION

Historicising Caste
in Bengal Politics
Partha Chatterjee

In response to the issues raised

by Praskanva Sinharay (A New
Politics of Caste, EPW,
25 August 2012) and Uday Chandra
and Kenneth Bo Nielsen (The
Importance of Caste in Bengal,
EPW, 3 November 2012), this
article argues that caste has been
hidden from view in Bengal due
to the very specific manner in
which religious community, class,
caste and political power have
combined in (West) Bengal.

Partha Chatterjee (pc281@columbia.edu) is

a Founder Member of the Subaltern Studies
Collective and lives in Kolkata.
Economic & Political Weekly

EPW

DECEMBER 15, 2012

day Chandra and Kenneth Bo

Nielsen are entirely correct in
drawing attention to the continued relevance of caste in the politics of
West Bengal today in their response to
Praskanva Sinharay. The apparent lack
of caste mobilisation in the electoral
politics of the state is undoubtedly a
somewhat unique feature when compared with the rest of India, but so is the
other quite unique feature of the state,
namely, the continued and unchallenged
dominance of upper-caste Hindus in virtually every public institution, whether
political or cultural. In fact, the two features are connected. That is to say, caste
appears to be insignificant in West Bengals politics precisely because public political life is thoroughly dominated by
the upper castes. But to explain this
somewhat unique phenomenon, one has
to consider yet another unique phenomenon the political consequence of the
partition of Bengal in 1947.
Upper-caste Hindu dominance in colonial Bengal was the result of the decline
of the Muslim nobility, the colonial land
settlements and the rapid adoption of
English education by upper-caste Hindus.
But as in other provinces of India, this
dominance came under severe challenge
in Bengal in the 1930s and 1940s from
rising groups of substantial peasant proprietors, of whom numerically the most
significant were the Muslim richer peasantry of eastern and northern Bengal.
After provincial autonomy in 1935, it
became clear that elected governments
in Bengal would be led by Muslim politicians. Bastions of upper-caste Hindu
dominance, such as the municipalities,
the universities and the bar associations,
began to come under challenge from a
rising Muslim middle class. The partition of Bengal was demanded in 1947
by an overwhelming majority among
vol xlvii no 50

Hindus who could not imagine a future

under permanent Muslim domination. The
consequence of partition was a massive
migration of Hindus from East Pakistan,
mostly to the suburbs of Kolkata, and a
smaller but nonetheless significant migration of middle-class Muslims from
West Bengal to East Pakistan.
Upper-Caste Refugee City
The immigration of East Bengal refugees
had many long-term effects on subsequent developments in West Bengal,
many of which are still not clearly understood. Urban refugee lives were radically sundered from the traditional patterns of rural life in East Bengal, deeply
shaped by caste and communal relations. Most urban refugees no longer
owned landed property, nor were they
serviced by attached labour. The fact
that refugee colonies tended to be roughly
homogeneous by caste and district of
origin only naturalised the solidarity of
common loss and struggle. The discriminations of caste practice in rural society
receded into a distant memory and were
not transmitted to the next generation.
For the latter, caste difference was rarely
encountered in their lower middle class
lives, except as something the family
elders would bring up when negotiating
marriages, at which time not only would
caste endogamy be invoked but also,
perhaps even more importantly, the
overwhelming stricture not to marry
into a West Bengal family.
The partition removed the principal
political challenge to upper-caste Hindu
dominance in West Bengal. The population of Kolkata increased by leaps and
bounds in the first two decades after
Independence and the importance of the
metropolis became overwhelming in the
states economic, political and social life.
Congress leaders from East Bengal retained their positions within the party,
now from their new urban constituencies. Rural Congress leaders, especially
from the influential districts of Hugli,
Medinipur and Bardhaman, many from
dominant peasant castes such as the
Mahishya, the Sadgop and the Aguri,
found a place in the state leadership but
69

DISCUSSION

only after conceding the predominant

position to the city-based upper-castes.
On the other hand, a strong political
movement emerged among the refugee
populations in and around Kolkata, led
mainly by upper-caste leaders belonging
to the communist party. This pattern of
urban upper-caste dominance of every
political formation, whether in government or in the opposition, continued
through the three decades of Left Front
rule and remains undisturbed today
even after the rise to power of the
Trinamool Congress.
However, another transformation occurred during the Left Front decades, one
that has not been carefully studied. The
foundations of caste politics in most of
India lie in the electoral mobilisation by
political leaders and parties of local institutions of social life dominated by this
or that caste. What has happened in
West Bengal since the 1980s is the supplanting of virtually every social institution by the local branch of the political
party. Whereas earlier there would be
the landlords drawing room or the village club or the school committee or the
caste council or the puja committee
where party leaders would congregate
to mobilise votes before elections, now
every such social institution has become
a mere extension of the political party.
Where there was competition between a
left party and the Congress at the level
of the village, there would merely be a
rival club or a contending puja committee.
Instead of local social dominance being
translated into political power, there was
the complete dominance of the political
over the social. Only in some of the
Muslim-dominated districts is there a
continued autonomy of social institutions.
This meant that the Kolkata-centred
upper-caste dominance of the left parties
was extended, through the party structure, to dominance over local politics
everywhere in the state.
The recent political transition has not
or not as yet meant a reassertion of
the autonomy of local social institutions.
Rather, the Trinamool Congress, in the
districts of southern Bengal where it is
now dominant, appears to be keen to
adopt the Left Front model of the
dominance of the political over the social
70

the time of partition, the sect was led by

its guru, the barrister P R Thakur, a
Congress politician who supported the
partition of Bengal and opposed another
prominent Namasudra political leader,
Jogendra Nath Mandal, follower of
B R Ambedkar and ally of the Muslim
League. After partition, large numbers
of Namasudras settled in Nadia and
24-Parganas, became largely urbanised
and gave rise to a significant middle class.
Before the rise of the Left Front, they were
largely with the Congress. From the 1980s,
Namasudras were split between the Left
parties and the Congress, but the Matua
organisation itself preferred to stay
away from any explicit political alignment. It came into the news at the time
of the 2011 elections when Mamata Banerjee received the political blessings of
the Baroma, widow of P R Thakur. But it
is unclear that this represents a political
resurgence of caste in Bengal politics.
There have been significant ethnographic studies of caste in West Bengal in
recent years, the most remarkable, in my
opinion, being the studies of the religious
and social life of subaltern communities
in Nadia district carried out by the folklorist Sudhir Chakrabarti. Another remarkable study of changing ethnographic
profiles of dalit and tribal communities
is by Santosh Rana and Kumar Rana.
But these studies are in Bengali and
have not been translated into English.

and exclude the Communist Party of

India (Marxist) CPI(M) from local
power. Since the Trinamool Congress is,
effectively, an even more centralised
party than the CPI(M), the Kolkatacentred structure of upper-caste dominance of the entire political space
continues unchallenged.
The Dalit Vote
The presence of caste as a factor in the
electoral mobilisations of different political parties has always been observed in
studies of local politics in West Bengal.
The reason why caste never became a
distinct object of study is that caste support was never polarised between the
Left Front and the Congress even at the
district level, let alone the state level.
Both parties had significant support
from every major caste, the only exception being the strong inclination of dalit
voters towards the Left Front from the
early 1980s to just before the most recent
round of elections after 2009.
The history of the Matua Mahasangha
is not unrelated to the larger history of
caste dominance in West Bengal. Before
1947, the Namasudra community was
largely located in the East Bengal districts
of Bakarganj and Faridpur. The Matua
sect was not untypical of many movements
seeking identity and respectability that
swept low caste communities in India in
the late 19th and early 20th centuries. At

Survey
September 8, 2012

Revisiting Communalism and Fundamentalism in India

by

Surya Prakash Upadhyay, Rowena Robinson

This comprehensive review of the literature on communalism and its virulent offshoot, fundamentalism
in India considers the various perspectives from which the issue has sought to be understood, from
precolonial and colonial times to the post-Independence period. The writings indicate that communalism
is an outcome of the competitive aspirations of domination and counter-domination that began in
colonial times. Cynical distortions of the democratic process and the politicisation of religion in the
early decades of Independence intensified it. In recent years, economic liberalisation, the growth of
opportunities and a multiplying middle class have further aggravated it. More alarmingly, since the
1980s, Hindu communalism has morphed into fundamentalism, with the Sangh parivar and its cultural
politics of Hindutva playing ominous roles.
For copies write to:
Circulation Manager,
Economic and Political Weekly,
320-321, A to Z Industrial Estate, Ganpatrao Kadam Marg, Lower Parel, Mumbai 400 013.
email: circulation@epw.in
DECEMBER 15, 2012

vol xlvii no 50

EPW

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